ACTIVISTS TO CHALLENGE NIGHTLY CLOSURE OF BEACH

San Diego 
Proponents of 24-hour access to Children’s Pool beach plan to challenge San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s decision to close the La Jolla site at night after viewing video footage of people abusing seals there.

The video, posted on YouTube last month, shows a woman sitting on, kicking and punching the seals, as well as other people taunting or chasing the animals. It was captured by viewers of a seal-cam installed at the site this year.

On Tuesday, Filner ordered the site to be closed from sunrise to sunset until May 15, about the end of the annual pupping season. The San Diego Police Department also has an officer patrolling the area at all times.

Arguing that the state constitution guarantees beach access to the public, Ken Hunrichs, president of Friends of the Children’s Pool, described the emergency beach closure as “unlawful and a gross overreaction.”

On Thursday, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said beach-access activists had notified his office that they would seek an injunction against the closure. He vowed to fight that challenge and to prosecute anyone charged with abusing the seals.

Jim Milbury, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which administers the federal law banning such abuse, said his agency is deferring to local police to investigate the harassment caught on video.